When the perpetrator is Muslim, the motive must be Islam

April 24, 2013|By Deanna Othman

Before we knew anything about the dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, we knew that he "recently became a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day." This piece of information was placed in the lead of an Associated Press article published as the police were still on the hunt for Tsarnaev's younger brother and alleged accomplice, Dzhokhar.

As the day went on with increasing panic and an intensifying sense of terror emanating from television and computer screens across America, and news outlets scrambled to release sound bites and tweetable articles with any information they could scrounge up on these suspects, it became increasingly clear where the focus of the story was headed.

If we were going to find out anything about these two brothers, surely that information would have to be related to their religious identities. Regardless of how these two people viewed themselves religiously, how deeply they associated themselves with Islam or the Muslim community, it seems the media only saw it necessary to probe their actions under a religious microscope.

The AP's decision to lead one of the first articles published about Tamerlan with his recent status as a praying "devout Muslim" implies an association between his change of heart, his identification of himself with the Muslim faith, and his alleged decision to carry out a murderous plot. How ironic to associate the act of prayer with a motive for murder — especially ironic when people have been calling on the world to pray for the victims affected by this act of violence.

The same article also includes a quote from Maret Tsarnaeva, Tamerlan's paternal aunt, who said, "He has a wife in Boston and from a Christian family, so you can't tie it to religion." An article published on nationalpost.com also refers to his wife as being a "good Christian" who converted to Islam. CNN aired an interview with a woman who was a friend of Tamerlan and an acquaintance of his mother, who essentially was brought on air to discuss how the mother went from wearing "crazy outfits," which she implied were revealing or provocative, to a black headscarf and covering garments.

Why all this talk of prayer, good Christian girls gone Muslim and black headscarves? Why the link between perceived piety and bomb plots? Why is the phrase "devout Muslim" thrown into an article lead seemingly as a euphemism for the words "bombing suspect"?

An article on Slate.com on Friday titled "Meet the Muslims Quoted, Cited and Favorited by the Boston Bombing Suspects" also attempted to draw conclusions on the Tsarnaevs' religious affiliation by mentioning the last tweet sent from Dzhokhar's account was a retweet of Zimbabwe-based Mufti Menk, which stated: "Attitude can take away your beauty no matter how good-looking you are or it could enhance your beauty, making you adorable."

Shocking, I know.

We've heard journalists and politicians alike utter the cliches "Islam is a religion of peace," and "The acts of a few don't speak for millions of peaceful worshippers," yet when the coverage is examined, the rhetoric analyzed, and the editorial decisions scrutinized — the same story emerges. When the perpetrator is Muslim, the motive is Islam.

This messaging seems to apply to the Muslim community alone. The stories that emerge in days following other acts of violence tend to examine suspects from multiple angles. Could they have snapped due to personal problems? A broken family? Drug abuse? Mental health issues left untreated? Social alienation?

Suspects identified as Muslim are not granted the same level of multifaceted analysis; their stories remain one-dimensional, always assumed to be a case of radicalization, of an outsider disgruntled with America seeking to exact revenge. But must that always be the case?

When a Muslim commits a crime, society indirectly puts Islam on trial; the guilt is deflected from the individual and placed upon the faith. Regardless of your opinion of Islam as an ideology, a system or belief or a set of laws, it cannot take the blame for an individual's volition. To examine a criminal's actions superficially, from a single lens, oversimplifies a complex situation. To judge what would compel a person to justify an act of callous murder based on who he retweeted, how often he prayed and his wife's new wardrobe fails to address the deeper issues at play.

The Islam-obsessed media frenzy has already manifested itself in leading bigots to attack a Bangladeshi man in the Bronx in New York City and a Palestinian woman in Medford, Mass. Two men were removed from an airplane leaving Boston's Logan International Airport after passengers said they felt uncomfortable when they overheard the men conversing in Arabic.

For more than 2 million people in the U.S., such loaded rhetoric only serves to further endanger and alienate a population struggling to be viewed not only as Muslims, but as Americans.